Elephone, a Chinese brand that delivers mobile phones cheaper than nearly every other player, has launched the cheapest QHD phone in India – Vowney, priced at just Rs 20,999 for December delivery.
The phone is almost exactly the same as the upcoming Yu Yutopia, but is cheaper. The Yu device is expected to carry a tag of Rs 25,000.
With this, the Elephone Vowney has become the cheapest truly high-end phone ‘available’ in the Indian market.
This is not the first phone launched by the brand in India. The company, which does not do any advertising to keep its costs low, has brought out many models including the full-HD Auxus Prime P8000 (under a tie-up with iberry). The P8000 is currently selling for Rs 15,000 on Snapdeal.
Elephone’s buyers are usually the tech-oriented crowd who want the latest and greatest specifications at the cost of a mid-range device.
Elephone tries to cut costs in whatever way it can while delivering the promised specifications and features.
This means that the phone may not have the spit and polish of a Sony or HTC, but if you are not worried about cosmetic details and looks, it offers a value proposition that cannot be matched by others.
Another area is build quality. Here, some Elephone models have had reports of having buttons with a lot of ‘play’, backpanel that does not fit well etc.. But this differs from model to model.
On the positive side, the Vowney has the following qualities.
First, of course, is the display. At present, such a high resolution display is available only on phones that cost at least Rs 31,000 — or Rs 10,000 more than the Elephone Vowney’s price.
In addition, the company is claiming better color levels (saturation levels) at 95% and 1500:1 contrast ratio. The display uses “negative liquid crystal display technology. The display performance is greatly improved, power consumption is cut down further.”
“95% color saturation makes colors more gorgeous. It can keep the real world (feel) and restore the original color,” the company explained.
In fact, the 5.5 inch display has a resolution of 535 dots per inch — one of the highest in the world. The Sony Xperia X5 Premium — priced Rs 60,000 — is the only other phone that has noticeably higher resolution at 800 ppi. The recently launched Samsung Galaxy S6 Plus, for example, has a resolution of 518 pixels per inch.
The phone also has Gorilla Glass protection, according to a seller website, though we’d request readers to check the point once again independently as it is not mentioned on the official website.
Built-in memory is 32 GB, with support for MicroSD card expansion. Internal memory is from Samsung, while the 21 MP camera at the back has a Sony IMX230 sensor, one of the best in the business. (One of the good things about Elephone is the detail that they give about the components used.)
The camera aperture is one of the biggest in the industry at 1/2, which means that much more light can pass through the lens than in nearly every other phone out there in the market today. The higher the aperture, the better the quality of low-light photographs. The phone also promises quick focus in just 0.15 (one-sixth of a) second. Front camera is 8 MP.
On the connectivity front, the Elephone Vowney does not leave anything to be desired. Both existing LTE bands — Band 3 and 40 are supported. In fact, the upcoming band 20, which will be used by Anil Ambani’s Reliance Communications, is also supported by the device.
Another important aspect is power and performance, and the highlight has to be the 4 GB of RAM and MT6795 Helio X10 Octa Core 1.9GHz processor. In this matter, a direct comparison with Yu Yutopia is not possible because the specifications of the Yu phone have not been released yet.
The fingerprint sensor on the Elephone Vowney is supposed to take only half a second for unlock.
Finally, power is supplied by a 4 Ah battery, which is among the biggest size batteries available on any phone in the market.
It should be mentioned that for service and support, users have to courier their phone to Chennai at present. Here’s the link to Elephone India‘s page.
Checkout the company’s official video below.
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